Edward Yourdon
Death March
Prentice Hall, 1997. ISBN: 0-13-748310-4. Pp. 218. $24.95.

Reviewed by Nick Christenson
<npc@jetcafe.org>

It's rare that I get excited about a computer book that has no hexadecimal numbers in it, but this is a good one. No, it's excellent. The subtitle is "The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving Managing "Mission Impossible' Projects." Almost everyone in the computer industry has noticed their workload increasing, while at the same time the deadlines imposed by their supervisors are shortening. Demands for qualified individuals, the amount of money at stake in the computer industry, and the constraints of working on "Internet time," have led to a showdown of corporate bottom line versus personal sanity. This book is your guide on how to deal with it.

Yourdon starts out describing what a Death March project is and explaining why they happen and why people participate in them. The book then goes on to cover such significant topics as how a Death March project team leader should negotiate with management for budget, working conditions, staffing, etc.; how to handle the day-to-day issues of working on such a project, and, just as importantly, when to know when it's time to get out.

I found this book to be remarkably refreshing in dealing with the true issues of working in these sorts of environments, and it is far more practical than I had expected it would be. It would have been easy (and entirely expected) for an author to say, "It's tough using a new formal process approach under such circumstances, so try not to." But Yourdon goes on to explain how to decide if a new system is appropriate for a Death March project and how to negotiate trying to get out of using it when it's not. This remarkably utilitarian approach pervades the whole book. It is clearly written by someone who has "been there" and has no use or time for trite answers. Talking about what to do when negotiating working conditions necessary for successful completion of the project fails, Yourdon says, "It's important to realize here that I'm not recommending resignation as a form of punishment or revenge. It's simply the rational thing to do when faced sith an impossible situation, . . . ." This sort of personal honesty is missing from the majority of books on computer careers.

The book focuses heavily on Death March projects as programming projects, despite the fact that the issues involved can apply equally to other computer projects or even completely different fields. For example, it's not much of a stretch to consider a team of accountants with one week to clean up the books completely before an audit to be on a Death March project. It would have been interesting to see some of the examples in the book extended along these lines.

This book was written with a great deal of collaboration from Internet denizens, who regaled Yourdon with tales of woe and success (mostly woe) from their own experiences. While this has led to a depth of coverage I wouldn't have expected for a first sojourn into the topic, a few things that weren't considered.

For example, Yourdon lists many reasons why someone may agree to sign up for a Death March project, but one notably absent is that completion of a project, such as building a new set of class libraries or building a new distributed data system, may lead to reduced work ahead. Also, there is probably a great deal of material to be written on the concept of having to complete continuous small projects over a very large span of time, as one might in, say, a Web page design outfit. These pose different but similar stresses and strains on the human psyche. It will be interesting to see what new issues will be addressed in the almost certain second edition.

On the whole, this book is excellent at covering its topic. It is certain to occasion thousands of thoughtful debates all over the world. At the very least, it will provide a great deal of practical advice for those "on the march" right now, as well as at least some measure of relief by letting the participants know that they're not alone. Expect many thousands of copies to make their ways to personal bookshelves all over Silicon Valley and the rest of the Internet world.